Barriers to the acceptance of road safety programmes among rural road users : developing a brief intervention

Motorised countries have more fatal road crashes in rural areas than in urban areas. In Australia, over two thirds of the population live in urban areas, yet approximately 55 percent of the road fatalities occur in rural areas (ABS, 2006; Tziotis, Mabbot, Edmonston, Sheehan & Dwyer, 2005). Road and environmental factors increase the challenges of rural driving, but do not fully account for the disparity. Rural drivers are less compliant with recommendations regarding the “fatal four” behaviours of speeding, drink driving, seatbelt non-use and fatigue, and the reasons for their lower apparent receptivity for road safety messages are not well understood. Countermeasures targeting driver behaviour that have been effective in reducing road crashes in urban areas have been less successful in rural areas (FORS, 1995). However, potential barriers to receptivity for road safety information among rural road users have not been systematically investigated. This thesis aims to develop a road safety countermeasure that addresses three areas that potentially affect receptivity to rural road safety information. The first is psychological barriers of road users’ attitudes, including risk evaluation, optimism bias, locus of control and readiness to change. A second area is the timing and method of intervention delivery, which includes the production of a brief intervention and the feasibility of delivering it at a “teachable moment”. The third area under investigation is the content of the brief intervention. This study describes the process of developing an intervention that includes content to address road safety attitudes and improve safety behaviours of rural road users regarding the “fatal four”. The research commences with a review of the literature on rural road crashes, brief interventions, intervention design and implementation, and potential psychological barriers to receptivity. This literature provides a rationale for the development of a brief intervention for rural road safety with a focus on driver attitudes and behaviour. The research is then divided into four studies. The primary aim of Study One and Study Two is to investigate the receptivity of rural drivers to road safety interventions, with a view to identifying barriers to the efficacy of these strategies.

Towards sustainable urban futures : evaluating urban sustainability performance of the Gold coast, Australia

Creating sustainable urban environments is one of the challenging issues that need a clear vision and implementation strategies involving changes in governmental values and decision making process for local governments. Particularly, internalisation of environmental externalities of daily urban activities (e.g. manufacturing, transportation and so on) has immense importance for which local policies are formulated to provide better living conditions for the people inhabiting urban areas. Even if environmental problems are defined succinctly by various stakeholders, complicated nature of sustainability issues demand a structured evaluation strategy and well-defined sustainability parameters for efficient and effective policy making. Following this reasoning, this study involves assessment of sustainability performance of urban settings mainly focusing on environmental problems caused by rapid urban expansion and transformation. By taking into account land-use and transportation interaction, it tries to reveal how future urban developments would alter daily urban travel behaviour of people and affect the urban and natural environments. The paper introduces a grid-based indexing method developed for this research and trailed as a GIS-based decision support tool to analyse and model selected spatial and aspatial indicators of sustainability in the Gold Coast. This process reveals parameters of site specific relationship among selected indicators that are used to evaluate index-based performance characteristics of the area. The evaluation is made through an embedded decision support module by assigning relative weights to indicators. Resolution of selected grid-based unit of analysis provides insights about service level of projected urban development proposals at a disaggregate level, such as accessibility to transportation and urban services, and pollution. The paper concludes by discussing the findings including the capacity of the decision support system to assist decision-makers in determining problematic areas and developing intervention policies for sustainable outcomes of future developments.

Identifying parent perspectives to guide active travel intervention with small populations : case study in Denver, Colorado

This paper investigates a strategy for guiding school-based active travel intervention. School-based active travel programs address the travel behaviors and perceptions of small target populations (i.e., at individual schools) so they can encourage people to walk or bike. Thus, planners need to know as much as possible about the behaviors and perceptions of their target populations. However, existing strategies for modeling travel behavior and segmenting audiences typically work with larger populations and may not capture the attitudinal diversity of smaller groups. This case study used Q technique to identify salient travel-related attitude types among parents at an elementary school in Denver, Colorado; 161 parents presented their perspectives about school travel by rank-ordering 36 statements from strongly disagree to strongly agree in a normalized distribution, single centered around no opinion. Thirty-nine respondents' cases were selected for case-wise cluster analysis in SPSS according to criteria that made them most likely to walk: proximity to school, grade, and bus service. Analysis revealed five core perspectives that were then correlated with the larger respondent pool: optimistic walkers, fair-weather walkers, drivers of necessity, determined drivers, and fence sitters. Core perspectives are presented—characterized by parents' opinions, personal characteristics, and reported travel behaviors—and recommendations are made for possible intervention approaches. The study concludes that Q technique provides a fine-grained assessment of travel behavior for small populations, which would benefit small-scale behavioral interventions

Discussions in space : interactive urban screens for enhancing citizen engagement

Local governments struggle to engage time poor and seemingly apathetic citizens, as well as the city's young digital natives, the digital locals. Capturing the attention of this digitally literate community who are technology and socially savvy adds a new quality to the challenge of community engagement for urban planning. This project developed and tested a lightweight design intervention towards removing the hierarchy between those who plan the city and those who use it. The aim is to narrow this gap by enhancing people's experience of physical spaces with digital, civic technologies that are directly accessible within that space. The study's research informed the development of a public screen system called Discussions In Space (DIS). It facilitates a feedback platform about specific topics, e.g., a concrete urban planning project, and encourages direct, in-situ, real-time user responses via SMS and Twitter. The thesis presents the findings of deploying and integrating DIS in a wide range of public and urban environments, including the iconic urban screen at Federation Square in Melbourne, to explore the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) related challenges and implications. It was also deployed in conjunction with a major urban planning project in Brisbane to explore the system's opportunities and challenges of better engaging with Australia's new digital locals. Finally, the merits of the short-texted and ephemeral data generated by the system were evaluated in three focus groups with professional urban planners. DIS offers additional benefits for civic participation as it gives voice to residents who otherwise would not be easily heard. It also promotes a positive attitude towards local governments and gathers complementary information that is different than that captured by more traditional public engagement tools.

A potential HIV epidemic among male street laborers in urban Vietnam

Background: Mass migration to Asian cities is a defining phenomenon of the present age, as hundreds of millions of people move from rural areas or between cities in search of economic prosperity. Although many do prosper, large numbers of people experience significant social disadvantage. This is especially the case among poorly educated, migrant unskilled unregistered male laborers who do much of the manual work throughout the cities. These men are at significant risk for many health problems, including HIV infection. However, to date there has been little research in developing countries to explain the determinants of this risk, and thereby to suggest feasible preventive strategies. Objectives and Methodology: Using combined qualitative and quantitative methods, the aim of this study was to explore the social contexts that affect health vulnerabilities and to develop conceptual models to predict risk behaviors for HIV [illicit drug use, unsafe sex, and non-testing for HIV] among male street laborers in Hanoi, Vietnam. Qualitative Research: Sixteen qualitative interviews revealed a complex variety of life experiences, beliefs and knowledge deficits that render these mostly poor and minimally educated men vulnerable to health problems including HIV infection. This study formed a conceptual model of numerous stressors related to migrants’ life experiences in urban space, including physical, financial and social factors. A wide range of coping strategies were adopted to deal with stressors – including problem-focused coping (PFC) and emotion-focused coping (EFC), pro-social and anti-social, active and passive. These men reported difficulty in coping with stressors because they had weak social networks and lacked support from formal systems. A second conceptual model emerged that highlighted equivalent influences of individual psychological factors, social integration, social barriers, and accessibility regarding drug use and sexual risk behavior. Psychological dimensions such as tedium, distress, fatalism and revenge, were important. There were strong effects of collective decision-making and fear of social isolation on shaping risk behaviors. These exploratory qualitative interviews helped to develop a culturally appropriate instrument for the quantitative survey and informed theoretical models of the factors that affect risk behaviors for HIV infection. Quantitative Research: The Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model was adopted as the theoretical framework for a large-scale survey. It was modified to suit the contexts of these Vietnamese men. By doing a social mapping technique, 450 male street laborers were interviewed in Hanoi, Vietnam. The survey revealed that the risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV was high among these men. One in every 12 men reported homosexual or bisexual behavior. These men on average had 3 partners within the preceding year, and condom use was inconsistent. One third had had sex with commercial sex workers (CSW) and only 30% of them reported condom use; 17% used illicit drugs sometimes, with 66.7% of them frequently sharing injecting equipment with peers. Despite the risks, only 19.8% of men had been tested for HIV during the previous 12 months. These men have limited HIV knowledge and only moderate motivation and perceived behavioral skills for protective behavior. Although rural-to-urban migration was not associated with sexual risk behavior, three elements of the IMB model and depression associated with the process of mobility were significant determinants of sexual behavior. A modified model that incorporated IMB elements and psychosocial stress was found to be a better fit than the original IMB model alone in predicting protected sex behavior among the men. Men who were less psychologically and socially stressed, better informed and motivated for HIV prevention were more likely to demonstrate behavioral skills, and in turn were more likely to engage in safer sexual behavior. With regard to drug use, although the conventional model accounted for slightly less variance than the modified IMB model, data were of better fit for the conventional model. Multivariate analyses revealed that men who originated from urban areas, those who were homo- or bi-sexually identified and had better knowledge and skills for HIV prevention were more likely to access HIV testing, while men who had more sexual partners and those who did not use a condom for sex with CSW were least likely to take a test. The modified IMB model provided a better fit than the conventional model, as it explained a greater variance in HIV testing. Conclusions and Implications: This research helps to highlight a potential hidden HIV epidemic among street male, unskilled, unregistered laborers. This group has multiple vulnerabilities to HIV infection through both their partners and peers. However, most do not know their HIV status and have limited knowledge about preventing infection. This is the first application of a modified IMB model of risk behaviors for HIV such as drug use, condom use, and uptake of HIV testing to research with male street laborers in urban settings. The study demonstrated that while the extended IMB model had better fit than the conventional version in explaining the behaviors of safe sex and HIV testing, it was not so for drug use. The results provide interesting directions for future research and suggest ways to effectively design intervention strategies. The findings should shed light on culturally appropriate HIV preventive education and support programs for these men. As Vietnam has much in common with other developing countries in Southeast Asia, this research provides evidence for policy and practice that may be useful for public health systems in similar countries.

Scenes, quarters and clusters: The formation and governance of creative places in urban China

This paper presents a PhD program examining the formation and governance patterns of the social and spatial concentration of creative people and creative businesses in cities. It develops a typology for creative places, adding the terms ‘scene’ and ‘quarter’ to ‘clusters’, to fill in the literature gap of partial emphasis on the ‘creative clusters’ model as an organising mechanism for regional and urban policy. The framework is then applied to China, specifically to Hangzhou, a second-tier city in central eastern China that is ambitious to become a ‘national cultural and creative industries centre’. Drawing on in-depth interviews with initiators, managers and creative professionals from three cases selected respectively for scene, quarter and cluster, together with extensive documentary analysis, the paper investigates the composition of actors, characteristics of the locality and the diversity of activities of the three places. The findings demonstrate a convergence of the three terms. Furthermore, in China, planning and government intervention is the key to the governance of creative places; spontaneous development processes exist, but these need a more tolerant environment, a greater diversity of cultural forms and more time to develop. Moreover, the main business development model is still real estate based: this model needs to incorporate more mature business models and an enhanced IP protection system. Finally, the business strategies need to be combined with a self-management model for the creative class, and a collaborative governance mechanism with other stakeholders such as government, real estate developers and education providers.

Resilient Maroochydore 2029 : Urban Design Futures

Resilient Maroochydore 2029 This exhibition showcases the work of 4th year undergraduate Landscape Architecture students in response to issues of sustainability in Maroochydore on the Queensland Sunshine coast. The projects comprising this exhibition all investigate possible design futures for the Maroochydore Centre, in the light of a series of new disturbance scenarios. Specific disturbances upon the landscape have been imagined, and design resolutions developed based on resilience to these disturbances. The proposals investigate how the Maroochydore Centre might respond to these scenarios, and how future components of the Centre might be designed for greater ‘resilience’. The Exhibition Five groups of students (32 in total) produced five strategic planning and design options toward this future: Team Transect: “What happens to a region following a sustained period of economic prosperity, with affordable property and negligible unemployment? This proposal investigates the effects on a community of massive population explosion, land shortages and inadequate planning regulations following an extended boom period.” The Foodfighters: “This proposal considers the scenario of massive food shortages and of escalating prices, and the possibility of government intervention to stabilise food supply. Strategies based upon simplified, collaborative approaches to food production are investigated.” The TTMKG: “This proposal explores the scenario of Peak Oil and the subsequent effects on society of homelessness, large scale unemployment, food shortages and global financial and political instability. Individual opportunities are restricted by the limitations of bicycle transportation.” Team Peak: “Peak Oil has restricted private vehicle transport to only the most wealthy, while public transport systems are under immense pressure. Rising unemployment drives localised trade initiatives, and the global import/export market has collapsed. This proposal considers the transition of a community from its position in a global economy to that of a relocalised economy, where basic needs are secured as close to home as possible.” After the City: “A rapid population decline as a result of the region’s failing economy has resulted in a fragmented urban fabric. This proposal investigates the possibility of new suburbanisation, reinterpretation and reinvention of space through phased processes.”

Re-framing infrastructure investment decision-making processes : a preliminary scoping study for urban flood risk management in Jakarta, Indonesia

Jakarta, Indonesia’s chronic housing shortage poses multiple challenges for contemporary policy-makers. While it may be in the city’s interest to increase the availability of housing, there is limited land to do so. Market pressures, in tandem with government’s desire for housing availability, demand consideration of even marginal lands, such as those within floodplains, for development. Increasingly, planning for a flood resilient Jakarta is complicated by a number of factors, including: the city is highly urbanized and land use data is limited; flood management is technically complex, creating potential barriers to engagement for both decision-makers and the public; inherent uncertainty exists throughout modelling efforts, central to management; and risk and liability for infrastructure investments is unclear. These obstacles require localized watershed-level participatory planning to address risks of flooding where possible and reduce the likelihood that informal settlements occur in areas of extreme risk. This paper presents a preliminary scoping study for determination of an effective participatory planning method to encourage more resilient development. First, the scoping study provides background relevant to the challenges faced in planning for contemporary Jakarta. Second, the study examines the current use of decision-support tools, such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), in planning for Jakarta. Existing capacity in the use of GIS allows for consideration of the use of an emerging method of community consultation - Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) support systems infused with geospatial information - to aid in engagement with the public and improve decision-making outcomes. While these methods have been used in Australia to promote stakeholder engagement in urban intensification, the planned research will be an early introduction of the method to Indonesia. As a consequence of this intervention, it is expected that planning activities will result in a more resilient city, capable of engaging with disaster risk management in a more effective manner.

The journey of becoming involved : the experience of participation in urban spaces by children with diverse mobility

Despite considerable discussion regarding the virtues of participation in urban spaces, the urban experience of children with disabilities has been largely ignored. This intensive study reported on the everyday experience of urban participation on the part of children with conditions such as cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, and juvenile arthritis, contributing new insights into their experience of journeys central to becoming involved in settings such as schools, neighbourhoods and shopping centres. The study identified problems in body – space – context relationships as points of intervention in our urban settings that promise to make a significant difference to their everyday journeys.

Making the train : re-conceptualising accessibility for intra-urban rail travel

Australian authorities have set ambitious policy objectives to shift Australia’s current transport profile of heavy reliance on private motor cars to sustainable modes. Improving accessibility of public transport is a central component of that objective. Past studies on accessibility to public transport focus on walking time and/or waiting time. However, travellers’ perceptions of the interface leg journeys may depend not only on these direct and tangible factors but also on social and psychological factors. This paper extends previous research that identified five salient perspectives of rail access by means of a statement sorting activity and cluster analysis with a small sample of rail passengers in three Australian cities (Zuniga et al, 2013). This study collects a new data set including 144 responses from Brisbane and Melbourne to an online survey made up of a Likert-scaled statement sorting exercise and questionnaire. It employs factor analysis to examine the statement rankings and uncovers seven underlying factors in the exploratory manner, i.e., station, safety, access, transfer, service attitude, traveler’s physical activity levels, and environmental concern. Respondents from groups stratified by rail use frequency are compared in terms of their scores of those factors. Findings from this study indicate a need to re-conceptualize accessibility to intra-urban rail travel in agreement with current policy agenda, and to target behavioral intervention to multiple dimensions of accessibility influencing passengers’ travel choices. Arguments in this paper are not limited to intra-urban rail transit, but may also be relevant to public transport in general.

Making the train : re-conceptualising accessibility for intra-urban rail travel

Australian authorities have set ambitious policy objectives to shift Australia’s current transport profile of heavy reliance on private motor cars to sustainable modes. Improving accessibility of public transport is a central component of that objective. Past studies on accessibility to public transport focus on walking time and/or waiting time. However, travellers’ perceptions of the interface leg journeys may depend not only on these direct and tangible factors but also on social and psychological factors. This paper extends previous research that identified five salient perspectives of rail access by means of a statement sorting activity and cluster analysis with a small sample of rail passengers in three Australian cities (Zuniga et al, 2013). This study collects a new data set including 144 responses from Brisbane and Melbourne to an online survey made up of a Likert-scaled statement sorting exercise and questionnaire. It employs factor analysis to examine the statement rankings and uncovers seven underlying factors in the exploratory manner, i.e., station, safety, access, transfer, service attitude, traveler’s physical activity levels, and environmental concern. Respondents from groups stratified by rail use frequency are compared in terms of their scores of those factors. Findings from this study indicate a need to re-conceptualize accessibility to intra-urban rail travel in agreement with current policy agenda, and to target behavioral intervention to multiple dimensions of accessibility influencing passengers’ travel choices. Arguments in this paper are not limited to intra-urban rail transit, but may also be relevant to public transport in general.

The Alcohol Intervention Training Program (AITP): a response to alcohol misuse in the farming community

Background Farm men and women in Australia have higher levels of problematic alcohol use than their urban counterparts and experience elevated health risks associated with excessive alcohol consumption. The Sustainable Farm Families (SFF) program has worked successfully with farm men and women to address health, well- being and safety and has identified that further research and training is required to understand and address alcohol misuse behaviours. This project will add an innovative component to the program by training health professionals working with farm men and women to discuss and respond to alcohol-related physical and mental health problems. Methods/Design A mixed method design with multi-level evaluation will be implemented following the development and delivery of a training program (The Alcohol Intervention Training Program {AITP}) for Sustainable Farm Families health professionals. Pre-, post- and follow-up surveys will be used to assess both the impact of the training on the knowledge, confidence and skills of the health professionals to work with alcohol misuse and associated problems, and the impact of the training on the attitudes, behaviour and mental health of farm men and women who participate in the SFF project. Evaluations will take a range of forms including self-rated outcome measures and interviews. Discussion The success of this project will enhance the health and well-being of a critical population, the farm men and women of Australia, by producing an evidence-based strategy to assist them to adopt more positive alcohol-related behaviours that will lead to better physical and mental health.

Listening to the talk of the city: media and urban informatics in community consultation for architectural and urban design

The discipline of architecture focuses on designing the built environment in response to the needs of society, reflecting culture through materials and forms. The physical boundaries of the city have become blurred through the integration of digital media, connecting the physical environment with the digital. In the recent past the future was imagined as highly technological; Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is set in 2019 and introduces a polluted world where supersized screens inject advertisements in the cluttered urban space. Now, in 2014 screens are central to everyday life, but in a completely different way in respect to what had been imagined. Through ubiquitous computing and social media, information is abundant. Digital technologies have changed the way people relate to urban form supporting discussion on multiple levels, allowing citizens to be more vocal than ever before. Bottom-up campaigns to oppose anticipated developments or to suggest intervention in the way cities are designed, are a common situation in several parts of the world. For some extent governments and local authorities are trying to engage with developing technologies, but a common issue is that social media cannot be controlled or filtered as can be done with more traditional consultation methods. We question how designers can use the affordances of urban informatics to obtain and navigate useful social information to inform architectural and urban design. This research investigates different approaches to engage communities in the debate on the built environment. Physical and digital discussions have been initiated to capture citizens’ opinions on the use and design of public places. Online platforms, urban screens, mobile apps and guerrilla techniques are explored in the context of Brisbane, Australia.

‘Healthy mobile check-ins’ study: using GIS in smartphones to track use of urban environment by survivors of endometrial cancer

Aims/Objectives Our study aims to test the capacity of a newly developed smartphone innovation to obtain data on social, structural, and spatial determinants of the daily health-related behaviours of women living in urban Brisbane neighbourhoods who have survived endometrial cancer. Methods The women used a mobile web app designed specifically for the project to record GIS/location data on every destination they visited within their local urban neighbourhoods over a two-week period. Additionally, we gathered textual data on the social context/reasons for travel, as well as mode of transport to reach these destinations. The data was transported to SPSS and Google Earth for statistical and spatial analysis. We then met with the women to discuss lifestyle interventions to maximise their use of their local neighbourhoods in ways that could increase their physical activity levels and improve their overall health and well-being. These interventions will be evaluated and translated into a large-scale national study if effective. Results Initial findings about patterns in the group’s use of the local urban environment will be displayed, including daily distances travelled, types of locations visited, walking levels, use of public transport, use of green spaces and use of health-related resources. Any socio-demograpahic differences found between the women will be reported. Qualitative, quantitative, and spatial/mapping data will be displayed Conclusion The benefits and limitations of the mobile website designed to collect a range of data types about human-neighbourhood interactions with implications for intervention design will be discussed.

Study protocol of the YOU CALL - WE CALL TRIAL: Impact of a multimodal support intervention after a "mild" stroke

Background More than 60% of new strokes each year are "mild" in severity and this proportion is expected to rise in the years to come. Within our current health care system those with "mild" stroke are typically discharged home within days, without further referral to health or rehabilitation services other than advice to see their family physician. Those with mild stroke often have limited access to support from health professionals with stroke-specific knowledge who would typically provide critical information on topics such as secondary stroke prevention, community reintegration, medication counselling and problem solving with regard to specific concerns that arise. Isolation and lack of knowledge may lead to a worsening of health problems including stroke recurrence and unnecessary and costly health care utilization. The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness, for individuals who experience a first "mild" stroke, of a sustainable, low cost, multimodal support intervention (comprising information, education and telephone support) - "WE CALL" compared to a passive intervention (providing the name and phone number of a resource person available if they feel the need to) - "YOU CALL", on two primary outcomes: unplanned-use of health services for negative events and quality of life. Method/Design We will recruit 384 adults who meet inclusion criteria for a first mild stroke across six Canadian sites. Baseline measures will be taken within the first month after stroke onset. Participants will be stratified according to comorbidity level and randomised to one of two groups: YOU CALL or WE CALL. Both interventions will be offered over a six months period. Primary outcomes include unplanned use of heath services for negative event (frequency calendar) and quality of life (EQ-5D and Quality of Life Index). Secondary outcomes include participation level (LIFE-H), depression (Beck Depression Inventory II) and use of health services for health promotion or prevention (frequency calendar). Blind assessors will gather data at mid-intervention, end of intervention and one year follow up. Discussion If effective, this multimodal intervention could be delivered in both urban and rural environments. For example, existing infrastructure such as regional stroke centers and existing secondary stroke prevention clinics, make this intervention, if effective, deliverable and sustainable.